Re: flour insects

They are usually one of two bugs, pantry moths or weavils, at least that's what they call them here. You do have to clean the cupboards thoroughly even rip up the shelf paper and pull the shelves out to make sure they haven't layed eggs in between shelves. Here's the bad news...by the time you've found them they have usually infected all products that have flour or grain in them, rice, flour, cakes, pasta, breadcrumbs, biscuits, crakers. The lot have to go! On a positive note, your pantry really gets a good clean. Pantry moths may actually come in on birdseed packages as well. Only remedies I know of to make sure you don't get to clean everything all over again is 1. freeze bags of flour for a day before emptying into a container2. use air tight containers for everything. I even put my pasta, rice crackers etc in containers or zip lock bags3. put bayleaves on the shelves. don't know why they say that, if you've brought them in the house in a package you've got 'em maybe the bay leaves stop them migrating to other packages?

Become a member of jamieoliver.com for free and access loads of lovely stuff around the site.
You'll get Jamie's latest recipes and food tips direct to your inbox, take advantage of exclusive promotions and offers, ask
Jamie and his team questions in the forums and enjoy your weekly newsletter too.

By submitting this form you consent to receiving news and updates from businesses in the Jamie Oliver Group of companies and the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation. You also agree to our terms and conditions found here.

I am not a robot.

We'd love to get to know you a bit better so we only send you

news and recipes that you want to read. If you've got two

minutes to spare, it would be great if you could answer a quick questionnaire.